Valar Dohaeris
"Valar Dohaeris" is the first episode of the third season of Game of Thrones. It is the twenty-first episode of the series overall.WinterIsComing.net, February 28, 2013. Jon is brought before Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, while the Night's Watch survivors retreat south. In King's Landing, Tyrion asks for his reward, Littlefinger offers Sansa a way out, and Cersei hosts a dinner for the royal family. Dany sails into Slaver's Bay. Plot Summary Beyond the Wall In the Seven Kingdoms In King's Landing, King Joffrey Baratheon's forces stand victorious after the Battle of the Blackwater. House Lannister's new allies House Tyrell begin to settle into the capital. Tywin Lannister bluntly tells his son Tyrion that he intends to disinherit him. This comes as a shock, because his older brother Jaime gave up all right to inherit his father's lands when he joined the Kingsguard, and Tyrion is rightfully the next in line of succession. Meanwhile, rewards are handed out to others who participated in the Battle of the Blackwater: for his vital role in lighting the wildfire explosion that crippled Stannis' fleet and his continued fighting during the desperate hours when the battle seemed lost, the sellsword Bronn is knighted. He is now styled as "Ser Bronn of the Blackwater", and while possessing no lands, wealth, or title, this drastically elevates his social standing. Meanwhile Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey's new betrothed as part of the proposed marriage-alliance between their two Houses, settles into the city as well. Since the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, the capital city has been inundated with refugees fleeing the war that Joffrey himself started. Cersei ignored the suffering of the refugees and starving smallfolk of the city, to the point that major food riots broke out weeks before, and Cersei bluntly told Tyrion that she doesn't care what "the people" think of her. In sharp contrast, one of Margaery's first actions on arriving in King's Landing is to visit local orphanages, with her servants handing out new food shipments brought from Highgarden in the Reach. While Cersei only knew how to gain power through fear, Margaery's calculated charitable efforts start to earn her not simply the support of the commoners, but their love. Even Joffrey proves relatively easy for Margaery to manipulate, even though things have reached the point where Cersei can't even stop him from killing peasants in public. Cersei hosts a dinner including Joffrey, Margaery, and her brother Loras Tyrell, and begins to feel outmaneuvered. On Dragonstone, King Stannis Baratheon's shattered forces regroup after being almost totally destroyed in the Battle of the Blackwater. Davos Seaworth is rescued from the sea by Salladhor Saan after being thrown overboard by the wildfire blast in the battle. Forlorn over the death of his son Matthos, Davos feels that Melisandre has led Stannis to disaster, and is horrified to hear from Salladhor that she has begun to conduct human sacrifices. After the defeated remnant of Stannis' forces returned to the island, Melisandre ordered any who spoke out against her to be burned alive as offerings to the Lord of Light, and even sang to them as they burned. Davos convinces Salladhor to drop him off on Dragonstone, intending to kill the Red Priestess. He finds Stannis despondent, sitting in the chamber of the Painted Table alone with Melisandre. Stannis has become withdrawn after his defeat, refusing to meet with his generals or his wife, only with the Red Priestess. Davos openly calls Melisandre his enemy, condemns her for conducting human sacrifices, and says she is leading Stannis astray. She counters that Davos himself urged Stannis not to bring her to the battle, and insists that she may have been able to use her powers to predict or counteract the wildfire trap. Melisandre believes that it was thus actually Davos' fault that thousands of their men burned to death, including his own son. At the mention of his son Davos draws a knife on her in a fit of anger, but he is restrained by the guards, and Stannis orders him put in the dungeon In the Riverlands, the morale of King Robb Stark's army is starting to wane. They have not had a significant victory since the Battle of Oxcross months ago, and the news of the Lannisters' victory over Stannis and new alliance with the Tyrells piles bad news upon bad news. Robb has won every battle he has ever fought, but the Lannisters finally realized it was too difficult to try to attack him head-on, so they have shifted to the new strategy of simply fleeing ahead of Robb's army. Robb's forces have won many small but also insignificant minor victories, as the Lannisters are now determined to simply wait Robb out and exhaust his army far from home while they slowly rebuild their own numbers and gain new allies. In frustration, Robb launches a new offensive to the east which takes the great castle of Harrenhal, which Tywin had been using it as the main Lannister forward base in the Riverlands during the first year of the war. However, Robb does not find the decisive victory he was hoping for: Tywin withdrew his garrison to King's Landing to counter the attack by Stannis, and didn't even bother wasting any men on a token defense of the castle. Robb and his forces are further demoralized to find that the Lannisters massacred two hundred Northern and Riverlands prisoners of war before they left, and the courtyards are choked with piles of bodies. They do find one survivor, a maester named Qyburn. Across the Narrow Sea Daenerys Targaryen's ship arrives in Slaver's Bay. Appearances :Main: Valar Dohaeris/Appearances Characters First * Mance Rayder * Tormund Giantsbane * Jarl * Jaremy Mallister (dead) * Qyburn * Kraznys mo Nakloz * Missandei Deaths Notes *"Valar Dohaeris" is High Valyrian, the response phrase to "Valar Morghulis", the title of the Season 2 finale. Commonly used in Braavos, "valar morgulis" means "all men must die" (in the sense of "all men must eventually die or later"), and "valar dohaeris" means "all men must serve". *This episode marks the introduction of a Low Valyrian language (sometimes just called "Valyrian" for short), spoken by Missandei and others in Slaver's Bay. High Vayrian ceased to be a living language after the fall of Valyrian four hundred years ago, and became a lore-language similar to Latin in Medieval Europe. Without the central control of Old Valyria over the diverse peoples in the domains of their fallen empire, their language wildly evolved over time into several different Romance languages. Each of the major cities of Slaver's Bay speaks a slightly different dialect but they are still mutually intelligible (they're more like regional accents). However, each of the nine Free Cities has its own variant of Low Valyrian which is no longer mutually intelligible with the others. The Low Valyrian of Slaver's Bay in particular was influenced by the old language of the Ghiscari Empire. The result is that there are at least ten different branches in the Low Valyrian language family. **Something which this episode does not make explicit (but does imply if you pay attention to Emilia Clarke's performance) is that Daenerys actually understands both High and Low Valyrian, which she learned from growing up in the Free Cities. In the books, it is explained that she feigned not understanding it and needing a translator in order to trick the slavers into carelessly speaking freely in front of her, and thus revealing their secrets, such as that there really aren't more buyers lined up and waiting for the Unsullied. *The storylines of Arya Stark, Bran and Rickon Stark, and Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, do not appear in this episode. *A few scenes with Arya Stark were filmed for the first episode of Season 3, but it was later decided that the episode was getting over-crowded, so all of Arya's scenes were moved to the next episode. Both episodes have the same director anyway (Daniel Minahan), though the season premiere was written by Benioff and Weiss, while the second episode is written by Vanessa Taylor.'Game of Thrones' producers say season 3 'as big as we're going to get' *When Cersei meets Tyrion for the first time after the battle, she says she heard he had lost his nose, but the scar across his face isn't as gruesome as that. This is apparently a wink at those who have read the books, in which Tyrion did indeed have the front his nose cut off when Ser Mandon Moore attempted to kill him. The TV series decided not to do this as it would have been difficult and expensive to achieve the effect and it would have limited Peter Dinklage's acting performance. *There is no character named "Jaremy Mallister" in the books. Catelyn calls him "my father's bannerman", but the current lord of House Mallister is Jason Mallister, who is in fact alive and well at this point in the books. *Robb mentions that "the Lannisters have been running from us since Oxcross". This is the first time that the Battle of Oxcross has actually been referred to by name on-screen. The battle occurred in the fourth episode of Season 2, "Garden of Bones", but up until this point Game of Thrones Wiki has been conjecturally referring to it as the "Battle of Oxcross" based on information from the books. This confirms that the location of the battle was unchanged in the TV continuity. *The new strategy the Lannisters are using post-Oxcross is called a Fabian strategy in real-life, so-named after the Roman general Fabius Maximus Cunctator. After the Carthaginian general Hannibal destroyed the Roman army at Cannae in 216 B.C., the Roman Senate finally realized that it would be all but impossible to defeat Hannibal in a pitched battle. Instead, they wasted no resources on attempts to give battle, falling back and harassing Hannibal's forces. *Tywin Lannister says that three out of the Seven Kingdoms are in open rebellion. The North and the Iron Islands are clearly in revolt, but it isn't clear if he is counting the Riverlands as the third kingdom, or considering them an extension of the North, in which case the third "kingdom" is the Stormlands under Stannis. Tywin might consider Stannis such a spent force that he doesn't counter the Stormlands as in "open rebellion" anymore. After the Stormlands' military strength was crushed at the Battle of the Blackwater, Joffrey's forces easily retook most of the mainland of the Stormlands, leaving Stannis only a few off-shore islands such as Dragonstone. *When Tyrion asks for at least some gratitude for his vital role in the defense of the city during the Battle of the Blackwater, his father Tywin bluntly brushes his request aside by saying that Lannisters don't do things to earn rewards. Upon closer reflection, Tywin's criticism is utterly hypocritical, as Tywin himself arranged for Joffrey to award him with the made-up title of "Savior of the City" as a reward for his role in the same battle. In the books See "Differences between books and TV series - Season 3#Valar Dohaeris" Marketing Promotional Images Valar Dohaeris still tyrion.png|Tyrion Lannister alongside Podrick Payne and Ser Bronn Valar Dohaeris still Rob Stark.png|Robb Stark References Category:Season 3 Category:Season 3 Episodes